Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You is a quiet, sun-drenched follow-up to his breakout hit Your Name, and it plays like a director trying to prove he can still move us without a time loop. The film follows Hodaka, a 16-year-old who flees his rural island home for Tokyo after a turbulent childhood, only to find the city drowning in perpetual rain. That weather stands in for his own misery, and the film never lets go of the metaphor.
Hodaka lands a job at a small occult magazine run by Keisuke Suga and his niece Natsumi, who investigate strange phenomena, including the unusually gloomy skies. One day, he meets Hina Amano, a bright, strong-willed McDonald’s employee with a strange gift: she can stop the rain and clear the sky. The film spends its runtime exploring whether their bond can weather the storm both literally and figuratively.
Trailer, via GKIDS Films.
The Rain and Its Meaning
The weather is not a gimmick here. It is the film’s spine, a visual shorthand for Hodaka’s isolation and his search for belonging. When the clouds part for Hina, the film turns from grey to gold, and the contrast is genuinely affecting. Shinkai uses the sun as a reward, a signal that the characters have earned a moment of clarity.
Hodaka and Hina
Kotaro Daigo and Nana Mori carry the film with natural chemistry. Daigo plays Hodaka as a lost soul who has stopped believing in luck, and Mori plays Hina as a girl who has always believed in magic. Their partnership feels earned rather than forced, and the film trusts the audience to feel their connection without spelling it out.
The supporting cast, including Shun Oguri as Suga and Tsubasa Honda as Natsumi, gives the story its grounding. The film takes care to flesh out Hodaka’s family situation, with his parents reporting him missing and the police tracing him through security footage of the Makarov PM handgun he keeps hidden. These details add weight to his journey, making his decision to help Hina feel less like a lark and more like a calling.
The Business of Clear Skies
Hodaka and Hina start a business offering their services for social gatherings, clearing the weather for weddings and festivals. The film tracks their rise from a struggling side hustle to a flooded inbox of requests, and it does not shy away from the toll that success takes on Hina. The story knows that miracles come with costs, and it shows those costs clearly.
Music and the Score
Radwimps return to compose the soundtrack, and their work holds up alongside their earlier collaboration on Your Name. The score swells during the sun-clearing sequences without ever overwhelming the dialogue. The film also leans on pop songs placed at key moments, though the source material does not specify which tracks.
The Legend of the Sunshine Girls
The film draws on Japanese folklore about girls who can control the weather, known as “Sunshine Girls” and “Weather Maidens.” An old priest at a shrine tells Suga and Natsumi that these maidens pay a heavy price for their gifts, a warning that the film returns to again and again. This legend gives the story its mythic shape, even as it remains grounded in everyday desperation.
Reception and Box Office
Critics praised the film for its animation, screenplay, music, visuals, and emotional weight. It grossed US$193.8 million worldwide, becoming the highest grossing Japanese film of 2019 and the eleventh highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, unadjusted for inflation. That performance speaks to its broad appeal, though the source material does not break down how it compares to other films in the genre.
Where It Lands
Weathering with You is a smaller, more intimate film than Your Name, and it asks less of the audience. There is no time loop to unravel, no parallel worlds to navigate. Instead, it offers a simple romance set against a backdrop of constant rain, and it commits fully to that idea.
The film’s flaws are visible too. Some plot threads, like the gun and the police chase, feel underdeveloped compared to the central relationship. The pacing sags in the middle stretch, where the business of clearing skies becomes repetitive rather than urgent. These are minor complaints against a film that mostly delivers on its promises.
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| Film premiere in Japan | July 19, 2019 |
| US release | January 17, 2020 |
The film’s strength lies in its restraint. Shinkai does not over-explain his characters’ motivations or force the audience to watch every tear fall. He trusts the images to do the work, and when Hina clears the sky, the effect lands because the film has spent its runtime building the tension.
Weathering with You is a solid entry in Shinkai’s catalog, a film that respects its audience’s intelligence while delivering a warm, hopeful message about connection. It is not a masterpiece, but it is a sincere one.
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